Automatic Photo Album Creation Based On Social Information

ABSTRACT

A social photo curation system is used to automatically identify a subset of photos for an album to provide to a viewing user. The album and its photos are associated with metadata indicating information about the photos, such as individuals tagged in the photos, locations where the photos were taken, keywords or concepts associated with the photos, and the quality and variety of the photos. The social photo curation system uses this metadata to score and select the photos for a particular viewing user. The scoring and selection of photos for the album may be independent of the viewing user, or it may be customized based on the viewing user&#39;s interests and connections to other users in a social networking system.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a Continuation of and claims priority to U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/316,168 filed on Dec. 9, 2011, which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

This invention relates generally to photo curation, and specifically tophoto curation in a social networking environment. Photo curation is atime-consuming exercise. Users may take dozens or hundreds of photosfrom an event and determine which photos to include in an album or toshow to other users in a social network. This determination is typicallya painstaking manual process which requires significant effort on theuser's part. Moreover, additional manual effort is typically used in asocial networking system to determine which photos to show to which ofthe user's connections and to set access privileges for variousconnections or groups of connections.

SUMMARY

Embodiments of the invention provide users of a social networking systemwith a method for automatically curating photos. The photos taken by auser are assessed by the social networking system to determine a varietyof scores for the photos. The scores can take into account a user'ssocial network, the photo, and metadata associated with the photo. Themetadata can indicate persons in the photo, the location a photo wastaken, or any interests depicted in the photo. The scores can also takeinto account image quality of the photo. The scoring method can also becalculated relative to the relationship between a viewing user and anyidentified persons, locations, or interests in the photo. Using thescores from the photos in an album, a photo curation systemautomatically recommends photos from the album which may be of interestto the viewing user.

By using information about the viewing user, the system tailorsrecommended photos to the information known about a viewing user and theinformation available about the photo. This improves the likelihood theviewing user is interested in the photos viewed from the album. Otheruses for the photo curation system include recommending viewing groupsto the uploading user and recommending access privileges.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an example social networking system which implements a socialphoto curation system.

FIG. 2 is an example social photo curation system including severalscorers.

FIG. 3 is an example process for identifying a selection of photos froman album using a social photo curation system.

The figures depict various embodiments of the present invention forpurposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readilyrecognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments ofthe structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed withoutdeparting from the principles of the invention described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Overview

A social photo curation system is presented for automatically curatingphotos. The automatic photo curation can use social connections, photoquality, photo diversity, location information, interest information,and other information known about a viewing user to determine photos ofinterest to the viewing user. In a social networking system, a user mayhave many different photos that the user desires to upload and includein a photo album. Using social factors, a social networking systemautomatically determines a suggested curation of the album. The photocuration used in this disclosure refers to selecting a subset of acollection of photos likely to be of interest to the viewing user. Thesocial factors can suggest which albums to upload to the socialnetworking system, which photos to show to a particular user, and whichphotos to provide for various groups of users.

For example, different photos from a user's wedding may be of interestto different people. The wedding ceremony may be of interest to allphoto album viewers, while the rehearsal dinner photos may be ofinterest only to the user's close family, and the afterparty photos maybe of interest only to the user's friends. The user may also desire toexclude family members from viewing afterparty photos. Meanwhile, no oneis interested in excessively grainy photos or other photos of poorquality, nor would people desire to see multiple photos of the samescene. The social photo curation system provides a method forautomatically curating a photo album using social factors derived fromthese social relationships.

The photos may include certain metadata beyond the raw photo itself. Asused herein, metadata broadly includes a photo's textual description, analbum name, tags, user interactions with a photo, user comments, alocation, and other information associated with a photo.

A tag is an identification of a particular aspect of a photo associatedwith the photo metadata. These tags can include tagging a user within aphoto, which may or may not be confirmed by the tagged user, a locationassociated with the photo, interests depicted in the photo, or keywords.These tags can be manually identified by users, such as the albumcreator, the user identified by the tag, or a third party. Tags can alsobe automatically generated or suggested, such as by tags used in otherphotos in the album, users' association with currently tagged users inthe photo, or by facial recognition of a user. These automaticallygenerated tags are typically confirmed by the person identified by thetag to ensure accuracy and user privacy. Tags can also includeautomatically generated tags which are not confirmed by users, and mayalso include tags which are not be expressly visible by users.

As used in this disclosure, a “connection” indicates a relationshipbetween a user and an object in the social networking system, such asanother user, a location, interests, or concepts as represented in asocial networking system. A connection represented in the socialnetworking system may or may not have a relationship outside of thesocial networking system. The connections may be explicitly declared bythe user or implicitly determined by the social networking system basedon user activity. Two users may not have an explicit connection with oneanother. For example, the connection may merely denote that two usersattended the same school, worked at the same place, or are both merelyusers of the social networking system. Rather, a connection merelyindicates the type and degree of relationship indicated on the socialnetworking system between the users. Location connections can relate topermanent location information such as the user's home as stated on aprofile, or to transient location information, such as a user'sfrequency of visiting a particular location. The transient locationinformation can be determined, for example, from the user's check-ins orphoto tags with associated locations.

System Framework

A general framework for a social photo curation system according to anembodiment is presented in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, a user device 100communicates with a social networking system 120 through a network 110,and the social networking system 120 is also in communication withviewing devices 130. The user device 100 sends a group of photos to thesocial networking system 120. The social networking system 120identifies a group of photos to display to the viewing devices 130.

The user device 100 is any device enabling the user to communicate withthe social networking system 120. In various embodiments, the userdevice is a personal computer, a tablet computer, a PDA, a mobile phone,or any other device for interacting with the social networking system120. The user device 100 includes user photos 101. If the user device100 includes a camera, the user photos 101 may reflect photos taken bythe camera. In alternate embodiments, a separate camera is used andphotos are transmitted to the user device 100 and stored in user photos101. The user photos 101 typically include electronically stored imagesin a variety of image formats according to a designer's preference.

The social networking application 102 may be a dedicated application onthe user device for connecting to the social networking system 120. Forexample on a mobile phone user device 100, the social networkingapplication 102 can be a downloadable application obtained from thesocial networking system 120. In other embodiments, the socialnetworking application 102 may be a portion of a website serviceprovided by the social networking system 120. In another embodiment, thesocial networking application is an executable script downloaded fromthe social networking system 120. The social networking application 102provides a user interface for the social networking system 120.

In one embodiment, the user chooses photos from among the user photos101 for placement on the social networking system 120. Using the socialnetworking application 102, the user can upload the chosen photos to thesocial networking system 120 for inclusion in a photo album 122. Theuser of the social networking application 102 may also add additionalmetadata, such as an album title, a description of each photo, tags,etc. to the chosen photos. The user may also control access rights tothe photos in the album on a per-album or per-photo basis. In addition,the user may designate that certain connections are allowed ordisallowed access. If the user has grouped connections into any groups,the access rights may also be controlled on a per-group basis.

The network 110 enables communications between the user device 100,social networking system 120 and viewing devices 130. In one embodiment,the network 114 uses standard communications technologies and/orprotocols. Thus, the network 110 can include links using technologiessuch as Ethernet, 802.11, worldwide interoperability for microwaveaccess (WiMAX), 3G, digital subscriber line (DSL), asynchronous transfermode (ATM), InfiniBand, PCI Express Advanced Switching, etc. Similarly,the networking protocols used on the network 114 can includemultiprotocol label switching (MPLS), the transmission controlprotocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP), the User Datagram Protocol (UDP),the hypertext transport protocol (HTTP), the simple mail transferprotocol (SMTP), the file transfer protocol (FTP), etc. The dataexchanged over the network 110 can be represented using technologiesand/or formats including the hypertext markup language (HTML), theextensible markup language (XML), etc. In addition, all or some of linkscan be encrypted using conventional encryption technologies such assecure sockets layer (SSL), transport layer security (TLS), virtualprivate networks (VPNs), Internet Protocol security (IPsec), etc. Inanother embodiment, the entities can use custom and/or dedicated datacommunications technologies instead of, or in addition to, the onesdescribed above. Depending upon the embodiment, the network 110 can alsoinclude links to other networks such as the Internet.

The viewing devices 130 provide access for other users of the socialnetworking system who request access to the photo album 122. The viewingdevices 130 are logged in to the social networking system and areconnections of the user. The viewing devices 130 may be any connectionsof the user with some access privileges to the photo album 122. Forexample, if the user has not restricted the access privileges of thephoto album at all, the viewing device users can comprise anyone. If theuser has restricted access privileges of the photo album to connectionsin a group of “close friends,” then the only viewing devices 130 thatmay access the photo album 122 are viewing devices 130 with a userbelonging to the group of close friends.

The social networking system 120 provides social networking services tothe user device 100 and the viewing devices 130. For example, typicalsocial networking services allow users to complete a profile, postcontent, comment on other content, form and alter connections with otherusers, and the like. This information about a user and the user's socialinformation are stored in a social network 121. The social network 121includes information about the user's connections, interests, and otherdata provided to the social networking system. In addition, the socialnetwork 121 stores data for the viewing devices 130 and other users ofthe social networking system 120.

The social networking system 120 also provides photo album storage andserving services. After a user uploads certain user photos 101, thephotos are stored in a photo album 122. The photo album 122 maintainsthe photos belonging to the album as well as any metadata associatedwith the album and with individual photos. The metadata stored with thephoto album 122 includes metadata indicated by the user when the useruploaded the photo as well as other data collected after upload. Forexample, other users may comment on photos, indicate that they like aphoto, tag a user in a photo, and initiate other social activity on thephoto album.

In one embodiment, the social photo curation system 123 provides asystem for automatically providing photo curation of the photo album122. The social photo curation system 123 suggests a group of photos inthe photo album 122 to comprise a viewing album 124. For example, when aviewing device 130 requests access to the photo album 122, the socialphoto curation system 123 can analyze the viewing device's 130connection with the album 122 using the album metadata and the usersocial network 121. This analysis by the social photo curation system123 results in a viewing album 124 for the individual viewing device130. In an embodiment, rather than providing the entire photo album 122to the viewing device 130, the social curation system 123 provides onlythe viewing album 124 to the viewing device 130. In another embodiment,the social curation system 123 provides the viewing album 124 to theviewing device 130 as a selected portion of the photo album 122, butalso enables access to the remainder of the photo album 122.

Using the social photo curation system 123, the social networking system120 tailors the photo album 122 to each viewing device 130 to create aviewing album 124 specific for the viewing device 130. In oneembodiment, the social networking system 120 suggests the viewing album124 to the user device 100, and the user device 100 provides feedback toconfirm or modify the viewing album 124. Alternatively, the viewingalbum 124 is determined when the viewing devices 130 access the photoalbum and is not monitored by the user device 100.

Social Photo Curation System

An embodiment of a social photo curation system is provided in FIG. 2.As an overview, the social photo curation system includes severalscoring functions which rate photos on a variety of metrics. The scoringfunctions assess the photos using the metrics and output a numericalscore. The scoring functions assess the photos using information aboutthe photos and the photo metadata. In one embodiment, the scoringfunctions also assess social profile information about the viewing user.The social profile information can include information about the viewinguser's connections, activities on the social network, the viewing user'slocation information, and a viewing user's interests. Next, the photoscores are accumulated and compared to determine which photos should beused. The selected photos are grouped to develop a viewing album 124.First, the several scoring functions (“scorers”) are described.

The social photo curation system 123 in one embodiment includes a photoquality scorer 200. The photo quality scorer 200 scores photos accordingto photo quality metrics. These photo quality metrics in variousembodiments include measurements of focus, brightness, image noise,contrast, composition, sharpness, image artifacts, and other photoquality aspects. The photo scorer receives images as inputs, assessesthe images according to the designated photo quality metrics, andproduces a score indicating the image's assessment according to the usedmetrics.

Connection Score

The social photo curation system 123 in one embodiment includes aconnection scorer 201. The connection scorer 201 scores photos accordingto the relationship of the viewer in relation to the photos. Forexample, the connection scorer 201 can identify the image contains anindividual, and identify that individual as the viewing user's closefriend and accordingly provide a high connection score to the image. Theconnection scorer can identify that the individual is the viewing user,a family member, a close friend, an acquaintance, or other socialrelationships. In order to provide connection scoring, the connectionscorer 201 identifies individuals in the photo, and next assesses theidentified individuals' connection to the viewing user.

The connection scorer 201 identifies individuals in a photo using avariety of methods. The identification of individuals may be performedby the connection scorer 201, or can be performed by a separate module.In one embodiment, the connection scorer 201 identifies individualsexplicitly or implicitly in the photo. Explicit identification of anindividual in the photo includes any tags which have been entered by theindividual or by the photo owner. The explicit data is a reliable sourcefor individual identification in the photo because it involvesunambiguous user action.

Implicit information is also used in the identification of an individualin one embodiment. The implicit information can include any metadataabout the photo. For example, an individual's name may be used in thephoto in a way which enables identification of the user. Other metadatacomponents can include a user's comments, user interaction, and otherindications an individual is related to the photo. In one embodiment, anindividual is identified with the photo if the user has commented on thephoto. In one embodiment, facial recognition is used to identify anindividual in the image.

Identified individuals can also be excluded from the list of identifiedindividuals to be used in the connection scoring. For example, anindividual who has previously removed his identification from the photo(e.g. a tag) may still be “identified” from the facial recognition, buthis information would not be used in the scoring. In this way anindividual's privacy is respected.

A list of identified individuals is compiled using the above methods. Inone embodiment, the individuals identified using implicit methods aretreated as less trustworthy and are flagged to give these individuals areduced score in the connection scoring. In one embodiment, rather thanthe connection scorer 201 identifying the individuals in a photo, a listof identified individuals is provided by another module.

The connection scoring function uses the identified individual and theviewing user to determine the connection score. The scoring function caninclude a wide variety of factors in determining the relationshipstrength. Information about the viewing user's connections is obtainedfrom the viewing user's social profile information. For example, theusers may be related by an explicit relationship, such as the usersforming a formal connection with another, which may include a descriptor(A is B's dad). Explicit information can also include any groups whicheach user belongs to. For example, users may have a “close friends”group or a “family” group to organize their connections. Suchrelationships are also used in one embodiment to indicate relationshipsof interest. In one embodiment, the connection is given additionalweight if the identified user and the album owner are both members ofthe same group for the viewing user.

Implicit information can also be used to determine a connection strengthbetween two users, such as membership in similar groups, or activitybetween the identified individual and the viewing user. For example, ifthe viewing user typically views and comments on the photos or profileof the identified user, the connection scorer 201 infers that theviewing user would be interested in viewing this photo of the identifieduser. Many other types of implicit information can be used to score aconnection according to a designer's preference. In one embodiment, theimplicit information is used to derive an affinity score for the viewinguser. The affinity score can be calculated by the connection scorer 201,or it may be pre-existing data in the social networking system. Usingthe information about the connection between the users, the connectionscorer 201 determines a score for the relationship. As an alternative,the social network 121 maintains a score to describe the relationshipbetween users which is used by the connection scorer.

The connection scorer 201 has now calculated a score based on theconnection between an individual and the viewing user. In oneembodiment, for photos with more than one individual, the connectionscores are combined to yield a final connection score. The combinationcan be additive, by a weighing, by using a maximum score, or other bymethods.

Location Score

The location scorer 202 determines a score relating the viewing user tolocation information derived about the photo. Location information maybe derived from the photo metadata, such as the album name, the photodescription, or comments. Alternatively, location information could beextracted from photo image data or explicitly provided by a user whotags the photo with a location. In one embodiment, the photo is uploadedin connection with GPS data, which can be correlated with a database ofGPS locations. The location information can also include timestampinformation, if provided by the user or if embedded in the photo. Thisallows scoring to be performed to determine if the viewing user has anyrelationship to the location or location-time represented in the photo.The location and time information also have varying granularities, andcan represent fine information, such as 12:34 P.M. on Sunday at 57Broadway, or coarse information, such as July in New York.

The location information of the photos is scored by identifying theviewing user's relationship to the location information. The viewinguser's location relationship can be identified from the viewing user'ssocial profile information, such as the viewing user's permanent ortemporary location. For example, the viewing user's permanent locationmay be listed in the user's profile. The location information can alsorepresent historical locations, such as places the viewing userpreviously visited or lived. The viewing user's location information canbe determined about the viewing user by the viewing user's profileinformation, the viewing user's photo metadata, the viewing user'spresence in other photos of the album (suggesting the viewing user was apart of the event being catalogued), and viewing user's temporarylocation-related updates. In one embodiment, these location-relatedupdates are provided by a user using a check-in feature of the socialnetworking system.

Using the location information about the photo and the viewing user'slocation information, a score is determined relating the two. In oneembodiment, the location scoring prioritizes similarities between thelocation information. That is, the closer the two pieces of informationmatch in granularity, the higher score is given to the locationinformation. Temporal information can be particularly relevant whereavailable, as a viewing user who checks into a location ten minutesbefore the photo was taken would be expected to be more interested inthe photo than a viewing user who checked into the location twelve hoursafter.

Interest Scorer

An additional interest scorer 203 is also used in an embodiment toidentify interests of the viewing user that are represented in thephoto. For example, interests can be extracted from the viewing user'sprofile, such as sports teams, musical tastes, activities, etc. Wherethese interests are identified in a photo, the photo can be provided afavorable interest score.

Interests can be extracted from the photo in a variety of ways. Forexample, interests can be extracted by referencing the metadata, such asthe photo description or the commentary. In one embodiment, interestinformation is extracted by identifying portions of the raw photo. Forexample, sports logos can be identified in the photo and are associatedwith a viewing user's interest in that team. In addition, the locationinformation can also be used to identify an interest. For example, auser who checks in or submits a photo with GPS information may indicatethey are at a stadium at a particular time. This information is used toidentify a game which was being played. The particular teams, stadium,or sport may each be of interest to the viewing user. A viewing user'sinterest information can be determined from the viewing user's socialprofile information. The interest scorer 203 uses the viewing user'sinterest information along with the photo's extracted interestinformation to generate an interest score for the photo relative to theviewing user.

Score Processing

After the scorers 200-203 have provided a score for each photo, thephoto selector 204 identifies which photos to include in the viewingalbum 124. The photo selector 204 first determines a score for eachphoto in the album according to the scorers 200-203. After scoring, thephotos are compared to one another to determine which photos receivedthe highest scores. The scores can also be weighed or combined tocalculate a single combined score for each photo. The scores can also beused to determine the number of photos. When the scores for the photosare high, the photo selector 204 will maintain a higher percentage ofthe photos compared to when the scores are low.

Alternative embodiments select the number of photos in a variety ofways. For example, the system may also take as an input the number ofphotos to select, or the photo selector 204 may select only those photoswhich achieve a certain score output. In one embodiment, the selectorexcludes photos that scored too similarly to other selected photos andtherefore attempts to include photos that have a variety of scoredistributions. For example, several photos that score the same from theconnection scorer 201 might be excluded, while the final compositionwould include some photos that scored well on the connection scorer 201,some photos that scored better on the photo quality scorer 200, and somephotos that scored better on the location scorer 202. The photosselected are then used by the viewing album 124 to provide a selectionof photos to the viewing user.

One embodiment selects diverse photos based on the metadata of thephotos. The scores are calculated as described above. Next, the highestscoring photo can be selected. The selected photo is assessed todetermine any associated metadata, such as tagged individuals. Themetadata of the selected photo is used to adjust the scores of the otherphotos. For example, metadata can be compared to the metadata of thepresently unselected photos. The unselected photos that have similarmetadata have the scores adjusted downward, and the unselected photosthat have dissimilar metadata have the scores adjusted upward. Anotherphoto is selected with the adjusted scores, and new adjustments arecalculated the unselected photos relative to the metadata of the newgroup of selected photos.

Social Photo Curation Processing

Referring now to FIG. 3, a method for automatically curating photos isshown. In one embodiment, this method is performed by the socialnetworking system 120 and more specifically is performed by the socialphoto curation system 123. First, a group of source photos is obtained300. The source photos in one embodiment are in a photo album uploadedto the social networking system 120.

Next, the source photos are scored 301 according to a variety offactors. In one embodiment, these factors include photo quality,connections, locations, and interests. The factors are evaluatedrelative to the viewing user and the information identified for thephoto associated with each of these factors. These factors are scored301 as outlined above to identify the information about the photo whichis likely to be of interest to the viewing user based on informationavailable to the social network.

After scoring 301, a subset of the source photos is selected 302, wherethe identified subset is likely to be of interest to the viewing user.The subset can be a specific size provided to the automatic photocurator, or the subset can be automatically determined based on thephoto scores. The subset can be selected in a similar manner asdescribed above relative to photo selector 204. Finally, the processshows 303 the subset of photos to the viewing user.

SUMMARY

The photo scoring and selection system described above can be used in avariety of applications. For example, though described in relation to aviewing user, these techniques can also be used for a group of viewingusers. By scoring for a group of viewing users, the system can also beused to suggest viewing albums on a group basis. In one embodiment, thegroup suggestions are used to suggest viewing albums to the album ownerprior to uploading photos. In this embodiment, the user may run anapplication prior to uploading photos to the social networking system.The suggested viewing albums are then used by the user as a preliminarysuggestion for setting group permissions.

In another embodiment, the social photo curation system is used toidentify photos for a user to upload to the social networking system.For example, in many instances a user has a large number of photos forpossible inclusion in an album in the social networking system, but theselection of individual photos is tedious. The social photo curationsystem is used to automatically identify photos likely to be of interestto the user and the user's connections. The identified photos can beautomatically used to create an album, or can provide suggested photosto the user.

In one embodiment, rather than scoring photos relative to a viewing useror the user connections, the scoring is performed using relationshipinformation derived from the tags associated with the photos. The tagscan be used to determine whether the photo is likely to be of interestbased on relationships determined from the tags. For example, the tagsmay identify individuals in the photos who are users of the socialnetworking system. The social networking system can determinerelationships between users who are placed in the same photo together.For example, if a photo includes two people who have a strong connectionto one another, the photo scores more highly than a photo with twopeople who have a weak or no connection to one another. In addition, aphoto tagged with an interest that matches an interest of a user taggedin the photo can score higher than a similar photo taken with a user whois disinterested in the tag interest. Tags can be used without relyingon social information as well, such as scoring photos higher which havemore tags overall relative to other photos, or scoring photos with anumber of faces.

The foregoing description of the embodiments of the invention has beenpresented for the purpose of illustration; it is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed.Persons skilled in the relevant art can appreciate that manymodifications and variations are possible in light of the abovedisclosure.

Some portions of this description describe the embodiments of theinvention in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations ofoperations on information. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are commonly used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to convey the substance of their work effectively toothers skilled in the art. These operations, while describedfunctionally, computationally, or logically, are understood to beimplemented by computer programs or equivalent electrical circuits,microcode, or the like. Furthermore, it has also proven convenient attimes, to refer to these arrangements of operations as modules, withoutloss of generality. The described operations and their associatedmodules may be embodied in software, firmware, hardware, or anycombinations thereof.

Any of the steps, operations, or processes described herein may beperformed or implemented with one or more hardware or software modules,alone or in combination with other devices. In one embodiment, asoftware module is implemented with a computer program productcomprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code,which can be executed by a computer processor for performing any or allof the steps, operations, or processes described.

Embodiments of the invention may also relate to an apparatus forperforming the operations herein. This apparatus may be speciallyconstructed for the required purposes, and/or it may comprise ageneral-purpose computing device selectively activated or reconfiguredby a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer programmay be stored in a non-transitory, tangible computer readable storagemedium, or any type of media suitable for storing electronicinstructions, which may be coupled to a computer system bus.Furthermore, any computing systems referred to in the specification mayinclude a single processor or may be architectures employing multipleprocessor designs for increased computing capability.

Embodiments of the invention may also relate to a product that isproduced by a computing process described herein. Such a product maycomprise information resulting from a computing process, where theinformation is stored on a non-transitory, tangible computer readablestorage medium and may include any embodiment of a computer programproduct or other data combination described herein.

Finally, the language used in the specification has been principallyselected for readability and instructional purposes, and it may not havebeen selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter.It is therefore intended that the scope of the invention be limited notby this detailed description, but rather by any claims that issue on anapplication based hereon. Accordingly, the disclosure of the embodimentsof the invention is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, ofthe scope of the invention, which is set forth in the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method comprising: storinguser profiles for each of a plurality of users of a social networkingsystem; storing information for each of a plurality of objects in thesocial networking system; storing a plurality of connections betweeneach of the plurality of the users and the other users or objects in thesocial networking system; accessing a plurality of images provided by aposting user of the plurality of users; receiving a request from aviewing user of the plurality of users to access an album, the albumcomprising a set of images selected from the plurality of images;identifying one or more tagged objects in the images in the album, wherea tagged object is an object of the plurality of objects in the socialnetworking system; computing one or more scores for one or more of theplurality of images, where one or more of the types of scores for animage are based at least in part on an association between informationfrom a user profile of the viewing user and the one or more taggedobjects in the image; selecting a subset of the plurality of imagesbased on the computed scores, the subset selected based on the scoresfor the photos on the types of scores and selecting a diverse subset ofimages with respect to the types of scores; sending for display to theviewing user an album, the album comprising the selected subset of theplurality of images.
 2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,wherein the tagged objects identify one or more other users who aretagged in the image, and the user profile includes information about theviewing user's connections, and further wherein the scoring step furtherincludes the calculation of a connection score using the tagged usersand the viewing user's connections.
 3. The computer-implemented methodof claim 1, wherein the scoring step further includes the calculation ofa photo quality score, wherein the photo quality score measures at leastone of focus, brightness, image noise, contrast, composition, sharpness,and image artifacts.
 4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,wherein the scoring step further includes the calculation of a locationscore, wherein the tagged objects identify one or more tagged locationsin the image, and the user profile includes information about theviewing user's location connections; wherein the location score includesa calculation using the tagged locations and the viewing user's locationconnections.
 5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein thescoring step further includes the calculation of an interest score,wherein the tags identify one or more interests tagged in the image, andthe user profile includes information about the viewing user's interestinformation; wherein the interest score includes a calculation using theinterests tagged and the viewing user's interest information.
 6. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the viewing usercomprises a group of viewing users.
 7. The computer-implemented methodof claim 1, wherein the score for an image is further based in part ontagged objects associated with the other images in the plurality ofimages.
 8. A computer-implemented method comprising: storing userprofiles for each of a plurality of users of a social networking system;storing information for each of a plurality of objects in the socialnetworking system; storing a plurality of connections between each ofthe plurality of the users and the other users or objects in the socialnetworking system; accessing a plurality of images provided by a postinguser of the plurality of users; receiving a request from a viewing userof the plurality of users to access an album, the album comprising a setof images selected from the plurality of images; identifying one or moretagged objects in the images in the album, where a tagged object is anobject of the plurality of objects in the social networking system;computing scores of different types for one or more of the plurality ofimages, where one or more of the scores for an image is based at leastin part on an association between information from a user profile of theviewing user and the one or more tagged objects in the image; computinga composite score for one or more of the plurality of images, whereinthe composite score comprises the scores of different types; selecting asubset of the plurality of images based on the computed compositescores; and sending for display to the viewing user an album, the albumcomprising the selected subset of the plurality of images.
 9. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the tagged objectsidentify one or more other users who are tagged in the image, and theuser profile includes information about the viewing user's connections,and further wherein the scoring step further includes the calculation ofa connection score using the tagged users and the viewing user'sconnections.
 10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein oneof the different types of scores is a photo quality score, wherein thephoto quality score measures at least one of focus, brightness, imagenoise, contrast, composition, sharpness, and image artifacts.
 11. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein one of the differenttypes of scores is a location score, wherein the tagged objects identifyone or more tagged locations in the image, and the user profile includesinformation about the viewing user's location connections; wherein thelocation score includes a calculation using the tagged locations and theviewing user's location connections.
 12. The computer-implemented methodof claim 8, wherein one of the different types of scores is an interestscore, wherein the tags identify one or more interests tagged in theimage, and the user profile includes information about the viewinguser's interest information; wherein the interest score includes acalculation using the interests tagged and the viewing user's interestinformation.
 13. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein theviewing user comprises a group of viewing users.
 14. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the score for an imageis further based in part on tagged objects associated with the otherimages in the plurality of images.
 15. A computer-implemented methodcomprising: storing user profiles for each of a plurality of users of asocial networking system; storing information for each of a plurality ofobjects in the social networking system; storing a plurality ofconnections between each of the plurality of the users and the otherusers or objects in the social networking system; accessing a pluralityof images provided by a posting user of the plurality of users;receiving a request from a viewing user of the plurality of users toaccess an album, the album comprising a set of images selected from theplurality of images; identifying one or more tagged objects in theimages in the album, where a tagged object is an object of the pluralityof objects in the social networking system; computing a score using oneor more of a plurality of scoring functions for one or more of theplurality of images, where the score for an image is based at least inpart on an affinity between information from a user profile of theviewing user and the one or more tagged objects in the image; selectinga subset of the plurality of images based on the computed scores; andsending for display to the viewing user an album, the album comprisingthe selected subset of the plurality of images.
 16. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein the tagged objectsidentify one or more other users who are tagged in the image, and theuser profile includes information about the viewing user's connections,and further wherein the scoring step further includes the calculation ofa connection score using the tagged users and the viewing user'sconnections.
 17. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, whereinthe scoring step further includes the calculation of a photo qualityscore, wherein the photo quality score measures at least one of focus,brightness, image noise, contrast, composition, sharpness, and imageartifacts.
 18. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein thescoring step further includes the calculation of a location score,wherein the tagged objects identify one or more tagged locations in theimage, and the user profile includes information about the viewinguser's location connections; wherein the location score includes acalculation using the tagged locations and the viewing user's locationconnections.
 19. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, whereinthe scoring step further includes the calculation of an interest score,wherein the tags identify one or more interests tagged in the image, andthe user profile includes information about the viewing user's interestinformation; wherein the interest score includes a calculation using theinterests tagged and the viewing user's interest information.
 20. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein the viewing usercomprises a group of viewing users.